"An online polling of Today viewers concurred with that sentiment. More than 93% said they like the spot."

So 7% of people don't like it. And some of those probably dislike it for some reason other than perceived racism or cultural insensitivity.

And then the article drops the fact that, as the Fark headline mentioned, the Jamaican minister doesn't have a problem with it, and that the actor's brother-in-law (who's Jamaican) likes it.

Got to love the manufactured outrage. I wonder how many of the multicultural ad agency people quoted in the article aren't actually bothered by ad itself but rather by the fact that it shows how much of their "expertise" is BS. How many advertisers are going to hire them in the future, at hundreds of dollars an hour, to be "appropriate" in ethnic marketing when it's (gasp!) perfectly acceptable to be less than 100% PC all the time? Who would have imagined that "ethnic" people have a sense of humor?!

macadamnut:The Only Sane Man In Florida: Land Ark: I don't understand how "African-American" became accepted. It seems like it should be horribly offensive since it presumes everyone in Africa is black and every black person is of African decent.

This. And couple it with the fact that most people in the country aren't first generation immigrants and they're just "Americans," not "Irish-Americans" or "African-Americans" etc. etc. There also seems to be a fair amount of apprehension among white people saying "black", and I've never met a black person who was offended by someone saying someone is "black." I'd find such a person intolerable as well.

Yeah, my girlfriend is from Maine & my brother-in-law is from New Orleans, so he's about the third black guy she ever met. She plucked up the temerity to ask what he thought about it one time. Basically he said "I'm black"; that "African-American" is contrived and patronizing and not fooling anyone, and if you want to really offend him you call him a "punk".

As a New Orleans native who is Colombian, Italian, and with a wee bit of the tarbrush in me from my Colombian side, New Orleans black people will refer to each other in terms based on the color of their skin. Blue, red bone, high yellow, creole, or even say they are spanish or indian if they do not want to admit they are black.

Most northern states have no idea about black people but their residents freak out when they come to the dirty south and realize we are people of color.

I had a girlfriend from rhode island who though that the only dagos in the new world were from new york and rhode island.

Captain Dan:These people aren't personally offended. They're professionally offended. They work for multicultural agencies. Their jobs would go away if not for playing the race/gay/woman card, if not for the subsequent lawsuit-fearing apologies, if not for the subsequent diversity seminars put on by the "offended" agents.

Not that I've been going out of my way to look, but the only two "people of colour" that seem to have a problem with this are Ricki Fairley-Brown from this article, and Charles Blow from the NYT... I think you may be on to something with that Professionally Offended thing.

BigNumber12:Leave it to Progressives to white knight for people who never wanted their help, particularly when they get to call other people "racists." Anything to prove to the world how Enlightened and Tolerant they are.

And leave it to the Far Right to make up a fantasy Progressive out of equal parts straw and Freudian projection, and then assign it selfish motives.

ciberido:BigNumber12: Leave it to Progressives to white knight for people who never wanted their help, particularly when they get to call other people "racists." Anything to prove to the world how Enlightened and Tolerant they are.

And leave it to the Far Right to make up a fantasy Progressive out of equal parts straw and Freudian projection, and then assign it selfish motives.

Oh yes, this sort of behavior is completely unheard-of on the Left. And all of the zealous white knights on Fark are sinister Republican plants.

How about we all start ignoring the small minority who get butthurt about everything. It's a harmless, sort of funny commercial that features a fake patois. Thank god the world is so perfect that the media can devote this much energy to a VW commercial.

ordinarysteve:How about we all start ignoring the small minority who get butthurt about everything. It's a harmless, sort of funny commercial that features a fake patois. Thank god the world is so perfect that the media can devote this much energy to a VW commercial.

Lionel Mandrake:"It's pretty horrific," says Ricki Fairley-Brown, president of the multicultural marketing agency Dove Marketing. "Why do they have a white guy from Minnesota faking a Jamaican accent?"

Same reason men dress as women, babies and animals talk and dance, and grannies rap. A big part of humor of humor is having people do things that are unexpected or against type.

When Fargo came out I spoke with my mother and said. "It was an entertaining movie but I thought the accents were wa off."

She paused for a long time and said "Yah"

And I paused for a long time and said "Yah Mom."

And then I paused for a long time and said "Actually, in retrospect I think they kind of nailed it."

- I was born in Minneapolis and it was borderline Jamacain channeled through repressed Norwegians so as supposedly disparate as it is, I kind of see the connection. There's a fine line between Yah Mon and Yah Mom and Ole Bull hangs his lutefisk on it.

Dafatone:untaken_name: Land Ark: OtherLittleGuy: Everyone know that Jamaicans are African-American, like any other person of color.

I don't understand how "African-American" became accepted. It seems like it should be horribly offensive since it presumes everyone in Africa is black and every black person is of African decent.

Political correctness has never made sense. If the pattern holds, African-American will soon become offensive and a new term will be pushed as the politically correct term to use. This is what happened to "colored" and "black".

"African-American" is kind of a dumb term. Black's never been offensive.

There is a euphemism treadmill at work here. That much is true. But it has more to do with human nature and the nature of language than any sort of conspiracy or shortcoming of any particular group of people.

Certain clothing, traditions, and yes, even accents are reserved for certain races. If you disagree, you are oppressing those poor minorities.

This presumes white people from Jamaica dont speak with a Jamaican accent, so by cultural appropriation you mean stereotyping - certain clothing, traditions and accents are reserved in a racist head as stereotypes.

chazsandiego:I remember when the English got mega pissed off at Jerry Seinfeld for this late 90's Amex commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQWFZZE-DY

Yeah I was in England then and only remember us brits thinking it was awesome, we are proud of our weird and wonderful brit speak. Cant remember anyone, not even the current bun, being miffed by this malarkey

It's just a bunch of projection. The people who think this is 'racist' are the ones who are actually racist. "A white person talking like a black person, that's racist!" "No, he's talking like a Jamaican." "Yeah and Jamaicans are all black." "Wow, racist much?"

But in the end, it's press. And any press is good press if it gets ppl talking about it. Sure the minister wants to cobrand he sees nothing but $$$$$. Anything to get those "one love, one heart" commercials off the air.

Maybe people need to take the Jamaican attitude about it and LIGHTEN THE fark UP PEOPLE.

I mean GEEZE. nothing in the commercial was insulting. It portrayed the whole attitude as positive, joyous, and laudable.

But I watched as a bunch of self righteous but self loathing white people got on TV and proceeded to tell me how racist and negative this was... never once actually citing anything that proved their point mind you... and expressed all their deep self inflicted guilt over how they mistreat de poor black mahn.

fark them and the horse they road in on. We need to start having people stand up to these self loathing pricks and tell them to go be guilt filled assholes somewhere else.

People are freaking sick and tired of hearing moaning white people chanting about how EVERYTHING is RACIST. You people aren't enlightened... you're just dipshiats that need to lighten the fark up.

The farking world has it in for EVERYONE. Maybe we should take a page out of the Jamaican world view and just try and get along with love for our fellow man and be kind to one another... now. and not dwell on shiat people 150 years ago did to each other. Look at the middle east, they've been hashing the same shiat over for 3000 years. Where has that gotten them?